Leo Yue/HIGHLANDER

On Tuesday, May 7, from 7 to 10 p.m., ASPB brought back its annual comedy show, “Laugh Out Loud.” Students filled up the HUB Plaza in excitement, even going so far as to grab chairs from inside the HUB because of the lack of seating outside. The entire stage was surrounded from all sides by students, all waiting for the comedians from the popular MTV show “Wild ‘n Out.”

“Wild ‘n Out” is a TV show where a group of comedians participate in comedy challenges and games. This year, comedians Karlous Miller, Darren Brand and Justina Valentine performed for UCR students. The comedian Conceited was scheduled to come but dropped out of the show last minute for personal reasons.

The show kicked off with Justina Valentine performing three of her original singles, “Ain’t Fancy,” “Damn” and “Voicemail.” Valentine kept the crowd captivated with her fiery stage presence, even going as far as climbing up the sides of the stage so she could reach more students.

Valentine continued her solo set with a freestyle rap. She had students in the crowd shout out different words to her that she would then include in a rap that she made off the top of her head. The words were “derivative,” “college,” “Scooby-Doo,” “cop,” “fallopian tube,” “tattoo” and “lace front.” This combination of words made for an overall strange but entertaining rap. Valentine ended her freestyle by inviting up a student to come dance with her on stage.

Up next was Darren Brand, who opted to perform a stand-up show that related to student life in college and personal relationships. He cracked a couple of jokes about cheating, drinking and romance that had the crowd laughing to the point of tears. After the crowd settled down, Brand began to take on a more serious tone and spoke about his personal journey. His journey into the entertainment industry began when Brand drove from North Carolina to New York for a 15-minute audition. “What I did, that is called investing in yourself and taking a chance on you. So if you got something you want to do, don’t worry about the numbers or the followers. Just be consistent, be current and don’t quit,” expressed Brand.

Brand was then joined on stage by Valentine and Miller; the three invited 14 students up to play games from the show. After splitting into two teams, the first game of the night was, “Let Me Holla,” a game where the participant has to walk up to a girl and try an original pickup line on her. The pickup line was determined as a success or not depending on the laughs from the audience.

“It was fantastic (being up on stage), I loved every single minute of it. I felt very hyped up and they made sure that I was comfortable up there,” said Amanda Escalera, a second-year psychology major.

The night came to a close with another game from the show called, “Family Reunion.” Students invited an audience member up on the stage and had to introduce them through rap. From there it escalated into a full-blown roast rap battle, with the two teams pitted against each other to see who could come up with a better burn. The microphone was open for anyone on stage to grab and anyone could be targeted. Some people fell flat with their jokes, but others were able to have the audience yelling at the top of their lungs.

“It was getting pretty intense up there and I’ve actually worked with ‘Wild ‘n Out’ before as a photographer behind the scenes. So getting up there was out of my element but it was pretty exciting at the same time,” commented AJ Wilson, a fourth-year photography major.

Next Wednesday, May 22, at the Pentland Bear Cave, Residential Life and ASPB are collaborating in presenting: #UCRHIPTIP with Karamo Brown. Brown is a reality television personality, author and activist. He is currently the culture expert of the Netflix’s original series “Queer Eye.”

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